It's true that a picture is worth a thousand words. And that's what makes digital storytelling so appealing. You do not need a long script, nor do you need 50 pictures. An effective digital story should not be longer than 4 minutes. Use BIG, clear images. Download images that are at least 400 x 500 pixels. You will need about 20-25 images for a 2-3 minute digital story.
Of course, you can go straight to Google Images and start punching in keywords, but take a moment to read over your script and make some notes about the images you're looking for. If your script says, "It was once the land where powerful kings built stone fortresses and were rich in cattle, ivory, gold, and farmland" what are you picturing in your mind? Which of these two images matches the meaning of the script most effectively?
Film-makers refer to this as a "shot list." You DO NOT need an image for everything you say in your script. Let your images do some of the storytelling. For example, how does this image help tell the story of Zimbabwe's political situation?
One more image exercise. If you were using the image below in a story about China's recent earth quake, what might your script say? Remember, you're telling a story, not narrating a slideshow.
Use the Google Image Labeler to practice matching descriptive words to an image.
PLACES to FIND IMAGES on the WEB
Woophy - Photosharing site that you can search by geographic location Photobucket - Not as good quality as Flickr but still large selection of pics Picassa - Very large selection Ask Images - provides facts and encyclopedic info related to the topic you're searching Flickr - the best FREE quality photos are here FreeImages - Decent images, not very easy to navigate Google Images - Very reliable Yahoo Images - Includes images from Flickr
It's true that a picture is worth a thousand words. And that's what makes digital storytelling so appealing. You do not need a long script, nor do you need 50 pictures. An effective digital story should not be longer than 4 minutes. Use BIG, clear images. Download images that are at least 400 x 500 pixels. You will need about 20-25 images for a 2-3 minute digital story.
Of course, you can go straight to Google Images and start punching in keywords, but take a moment to read over your script and make some notes about the images you're looking for. If your script says, "It was once the land where powerful kings built stone fortresses and were rich in cattle, ivory, gold, and farmland" what are you picturing in your mind? Which of these two images matches the meaning of the script most effectively?
Film-makers refer to this as a "shot list." You DO NOT need an image for everything you say in your script. Let your images do some of the storytelling. For example, how does this image help tell the story of Zimbabwe's political situation?
One more image exercise. If you were using the image below in a story about China's recent earth quake, what might your script say? Remember, you're telling a story, not narrating a slideshow.
Use the Google Image Labeler to practice matching descriptive words to an image.
PLACES to FIND IMAGES on the WEB
Woophy - Photosharing site that you can search by geographic location
Photobucket - Not as good quality as Flickr but still large selection of pics
Picassa - Very large selection
Ask Images - provides facts and encyclopedic info related to the topic you're searching
Flickr - the best FREE quality photos are here
FreeImages - Decent images, not very easy to navigate
Google Images - Very reliable
Yahoo Images - Includes images from Flickr
Bernajean Porter's DigiTales website has a great collection of places to find images for your story.
*When using a search engine, don't forget that you can do an advanced search and be very specific about the keywords and size of images you want.